Ham(b)ra…

Still feeling like a compressed can of soda. So much to do in this week and I barely have the time to brush my hair before going out even (literally). The coming weeks aren't free any further I presume.
Meanwhile, I'm waiting for the gallery of the monodrama festival to be established, so that I can publish my shots further. It is supposed to take place around May 25^th. Still a long time if you ask me. On the other hand, there is an eye check up appointment waiting for me by next Sunday, and I'm completely feeling uneasy about it. I need a 2 weeks vacation just to do what I "have" to do and what I really "want" to do. Well, Let's make that 3 weeks…

Ham(b)ra

Al-Hamra (or mockingly: El Hambra!) is one of the longest buildings in the city here. The group managed to make a deal with whoever is in charge to let us in and do some photo shoot inside. Originally, this "trip" is not related to my current class with the group which is about B&W photography, but however, it was a good practice there and our teacher asked us to do some B&W shoot in there.

A map of the location. The blue marker points to the tower while the red one points to the mall itself. The green marker points to the shadow of the tower on the ground; compare to other shadows!

It was my first time in that building and I have to say that I did like the architecture there in general, yet it doesn't sweeten my eyes as much as a typical traditional architecture (i.e. Islamic so to say). However, the lines and shapes were abundant and in fact I spent my whole time mostly in one location trying to extract abstracts as much as possible from there. Needless to say that my burden of tools was heavy and didn't allow for easy movement from one place to another. Other members of the group were roaming the place and did have way much better shots than I did in fact. All settled in B&W. No tint.
In the beginning, however, there was a panorama for the place which I tried my best to make centralized as much as possible for a perfect symmetry. Anyway, because of the movement in the place and the presence of the group (and passing people a bit) it turned out to be a troublesome panorama and I do need quite a time to fix the slides together. With any luck, I might be able to post it next week here!

The main whole where most of my shots were taken.
Rokinon 8mm fisheye, f/8(?), 15^-1, ISO100.
Interestingly, I fixed the tilt when editing the RAW, yet my teacher exclaimed about the presence of the tilt still!

The Ceiling

Even though most shots were taken in exposure brackets as for merging into HDR later, but only one was picked for the edit. Also, everyone agreed that the light conditions (specifically outside) were not proper for the session (hence the extremely bright windows shown in the entrance hall above). Though I don't mind the brightness and I think they add to the contrast, but still they say some details or lower level of light must be there. On the other hand, since the images were shot in RAW, and despite using the Monochrome Picture Style my Canon camera, yet Photoshop does not identify such styles. The images would still show up in color. Thus, the images you see here are in fact "converted" to B&W by the RAW editor. Nevertheless, we were supposed to use the LiveView feature in our cameras to aid in forming a perspective of the B&W image we are about to make.
I did my reading about the B&W photography some long time ago and what I taught myself is in fact what has been taught in this class so far; it is all about patterns and light (thus, abstracts are a good approach in this field). The whole idea is that you forget about the color and concentrate on composition, because it is the pinning factor for your image. You take off colors simply to make the viewer concentrate more on the emotions and the shapes involved in your photo. For that, and keeping this in mind, I wouldn't have to use the LiveView much to imagine my shot, but after all it is a good practice. One's eye should be able to predict the outcome of the B&W already by looking directly to the nature of the subject and the lighting about it, and not its colors.

Hanging
Rokinon 8mm fisheye, f/8(?),
50^-1 sec, ISO100.

After a while, the group decided to head up, to the 60^th floor! Later I was thrilled to know we were supposed to head to the 80^th floor but the security people disagreed with that and the maximum height we could head to is the 60^th. I was tired already and in fact I wanted to go back home at that time but the group insisted on going up and have a look from there. I have to admit that the view is marvelous, and probably would have been more eye-catching if it was the evening time with the lights of the city glimmering over the landscape. Anyway, my first shot up there was actually of me lying down with my legs stuck to the wall, as you can see in Hanging. Of course, this shot was actually turned upside down for the purpose of "visual impact"; so to say. My teacher liked the idea but said it needs some work (the image itself suffered a heavy cropping as well, as it was taken with a fisheye lens). I'm not sure what extra work needs to be done here but I agreed to bring the original RAW file to the teacher to see for himself. I've removed the empty space (at the bottom of the image) since it doesn't serve the symmetry much.

InfraCity
Canon EF-S 18-55mm, @34mm,
f/10, 25s, ISO100.

The final shot from up there was a landscape shot for the city in portrait, using the infrared filter. In the beginning I had some trials with Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens, and the Canon EF 15mm fisheye lens, but all yielded improper proportions and the distortion was not highly appreciated in fact. Thus, I decided to head back to the very old (and shaky) 18-55mm lens; i.e. the kit lens. The infrared filter in use here was B+W's circular filter, which has a threshold of 650nm; meaning it does allow some visible light to seep through. It would not be possible to use the gel filter with such a lens (which has a threshold of 1000nm). For this reason, despite using ISO100, the exposure was relatively short (25 seconds only), compared to longer exposures in such situations when using the gel filter. Anyway, the shot isn't typically B&W but in processing such images the image would turn to B&W somewhat with a tint, and can be converted to pure B&W after all. Even such short (relatively) exposure did help in showing the clouds on the move. I guess an exposure of around 40 seconds or 50 seconds would be enough to give some good lines for the clouds' movement. Yet, the infrared filter did in fact help on adding contrast and to show the clouds more clearly (no polarizer was used in here). Still, the amazing point which I don't comprehend still, why the teacher sees a tilt in the image despite my fixes for the horizon line in the RAW editor! It is probable that this is caused by the barrel effect for such lenses. I tried to fix this type of distortion manually but the image was highly stretched at the bottom and turned out-of-focus-like; thus, I've kept it as it is.

Alarming

In all that mess, I got an unexpected (bad) surprise, when I realized some of my lenses were malfunctioning in a weird way. Mainly, the Canon EF 15mm fisheye lens, and the pretty old 18-55mm kit lens. I wouldn't be worried much for the latter, but the former lens is pretty important for my work with panoramas.
I'm not sure what's the deal here. However, the lens seems (or looks) dry. The autofocus function works fine, but when it is turned manual and I try to re-focus, the ring would rotate without the distance indicator turning with it. I would have to press and rotate several times to make it move. This doesn't make for a precise work if you ask me, but thank God it works, for now! Does it need some oiling? Is it a problem of some jamming in the inner mechanism? I'm not quite sure. I'm glad that the autofocus function seems to work without a hassle; for now.
These problems makes me think of seriously updating some of my lenses. Maybe it is a time for another wide angle lens (rectilinear this time and not a fisheye). Anyway, such dreams on hold for now, with the financial situation being shaky and the future is quite blurred.

Finale

It seems that every time I try to recollect myself and establish some time management - everything would fall apart. I've been neglecting lot of aspects in my life... and lot of projects. Namely the Geltani conlang which had been on hold for a pretty long time now. Maybe I should transform some of these projects to be worked with when I go to work; that useless place which gives me no value, nor respect.

I've been trying as well to push myself to write some poetry. There is one finished weeks ago but I didn't happen to post it here; I called it Marbhna Croí (lament of heart). I guess in the process of making one poem you should simply lose yourself into it to the limit of talking non-sense sometimes. If we think with some sense, I guess the poetry-making process would be in halt. This would be another venture that I need to look at further, as it is, like the rest of my projects, been forgotten.

I'm trying hard to keep myself on the optimism side, but things seem to be going downward on every corner. Here, and every where I look. At times, my streak of loneliness seems to be a grace and a virtue, but it does strike back suddenly just like a cancer plaguing the heart and mind. Trying my best to work and indulge myself in work to the limit of exhaustion and fatigue; yet nothing is achieved or not much of it is, and we are back to block number one - time management failure. I need a rest from the world…

Anocht…

It sounds like a slow-paced week here. Probably because it comes after the holidays. Ah well. It's not the first time. People here, most of them in fact, live from one holiday to another, and from weekend to another, and nothing to be called "living" in between. This is the case with me too, but I try my best to keep myself busy with my own projects as much as possible (despite the physical fatigue). I'm still learning the art of "time management".

Anocht

I've finally managed to go out at night and do some shooting! Seriously, it does feel like a miracle happened of some sort. Anyway, the trick is not to sleep afternoons, but later, to wake up a bit late! Oh, and to pack your tools and stuff earlier so you won't have to do them on time before going out - this thing can be a real hassle and put you down (specially if you are as moody as I am).
The chosen location is somewhere on the seaside (as usual); a pier. This pier specifically was closed for a long time as far as I remember and only been open some months ago. I paid a visit the week before to see what was the situation there and get myself familiar with it. Unlike the pier in Sharg area (Soug Sharg that is), in which I've worked before, this pier seems busy at night somewhat and doesn't get quiet a single minute!

The new location (red arrow) compared to the Sharg pier (blue arrow).

The first experiment there wasn't of much interest in fact. I got out with 3 shots, and to my standards, they are regulars. The architecture of the pier is not fanciful like the one at Sharg, but I'd say it has a potential. I don't think a panorama is possible there with the busy fishermen out there but it seems quite a place for some long exposures.

Canon EF 50mm, f/16, 20m, ISO100.

The first wasn't good, mainly because of nudging aside to allow people to pass. The pier's passage was narrow so I was forced to move a bit to the left to give some space. However, my aim was to get some "depth" despite the very simply structure. Anyway, can't complain. But probably I should have used a fisheye lens here rather than 50mm lens. I tried to fix the perspective in this image but it didn't work out well, and the trails (probably for planets more than stars) were not abundant (probably because I was facing east at this point). Processing was a compromise between contrasts of various regions. You can see in the horizon some blue flashes made by LED lights that fishermen use in their work, but anyway they were not a problem for the exposure after all. The blue spots on the passage are probably caused by fishermen passing by back and forth (as far as I remember it was dry to reflect anything). Probably this image can serve as a minimalistic one, but definitely not for printing with this amount of noise; which when cleared, will reduce the trails even further.

Midnight Showers
Canon EF 15mm fisheye, f/9, 9m, ISO100.

The second shot was, again, another trial. I had hard time framing Midnight Showers, specially with the dark atmosphere on the pier. I didn't have the time to use the white balance disk so I just fixed the WB value to Fluorescent WB, and all should be fixed later in RAW editing. I had to crop it a lot and because of the curvature of the horizon I couldn't really balance the image (fixing one line tilts the others). Even though I could have processed it in a proper way to make everything smooth and crisp but that would put down the few star trails in the sky. Thus, I've decided to abandon the idea of a "good" print and just processed the image in a way to show as much trails as possible, and cleaned the noise as much as possible. The nice thing about this image (though good in small size but not in a large one) is that star trails did really appear while city was surrounding the place. Probably if I used a wider aperture a bit the lines would be more prominent (but the exposure would be shorter of course). And like many do successive 30 seconds exposures for star trails and merge them later, probably successive long exposures would be possible too! I did that already in fact but in a sense of HDR merging (by reducing the exposure time to half between one shot and another).

Luminance
Canon EF 15mm fisheye, f/9, 65s, ISO100.

The last shot was toward this city this time. The main interest for me was the reflections on the water surface, which seemed like colorful columns. It sounds bad already for not having a book with me to read a bit while long exposures are done but anyway it was a good thing to meditate around and notice such colorful columns of light. In Luminance, the long exposure here is not only essential to achieve the required exposure for a good image, but also essential to smooth out the water surface. The water surface was relatively calm (seen a raging sea around here before) but the small ripples surely can benefit from a little longer exposure like one minute to be smoothed out as seen in Luminance. When thinking about it, in fact in a raging situation or higher tides and quite active ripples, one would need a shorter exposure relatively; at least this is what my experience foretold so far!
With these simple 3 shots, I'm hoping to get active in the last few days of winter before the weather becomes unbearable here. Going out this time was in the spur of the moment; no planning or anything, unlike in the old times when I had to observe the times for high and low tides. Coming to think about it, it is probably time to get back to the old locations along the beach of Salmiyah where I used to take shots in the old times, and this time try to go deeper in a low tide to have some proper long exposures. However, I might as well benefit from having boots!

Twitching

In the meantime, I've began already working on converting what have been previously done and processed of images from Ireland last year into B&W. Not all seem to fit of course so I'm trying to pick specific ones. Most of the time this conversion to B&W comes with a tint.

Uaigneach agus ag Fanacht
(lonely and waiting)

Na Riasca Gorma
(the blue marshes)

In most of these conversions, my starting point would be by using the Infrared preset in Black and White adjustment layer in Photoshop. Thanks to its unusual toning, this preset provides a somewhat inspirational kick for the coming steps later on. Some images were tinted with a monotone, like Uaigneach agus ag Fanacht many others, and some were tinted with a duotone like Na Riasca Gorma. However, in general, I wouldn't go with a duotone much right now for the large portion of possibilities and it's quite hard to settle with a combination (beside the different ways available to apply the effect). Images like Na Riasca Gorma was quite familiar in some websites and instagram and was favored by many for the combination of colors (blue and gold), which were complimentary. There were also some panoramas involved in this process but I'll keep them for later probably. My 9^th album of images from Ireland 2014 will be completely made out from B&W images of various types (landscape, macro, panorama, ...etc).
Along this trend, there is another line of thought (and it is giving me a headache already!) which is going back to old panoramas and trying to achieve something new under the light of the new projection styles that I've discovered, or let's say noticed. Panoramas from my visit to Staten Island, NYC, are of particular interest in this but I'm going back also to my 2010 visit to Cashel, Co. Tipperary in Ireland.

Hell to Heaven

In particular, the panorama taken from the Grotto are of special interest to me for the particular atmosphere attached to it. Unfortunately here, and for some reason I didn't realize yet, Hell to Heaven was stitched with patches of colors and some smudges (caused mainly by out-of-range HDR slides). I don't remember this thing happened in this panorama particularly specially when I printed it first time and sent it to my friend in Staten Island. Anyway, because of my intentions I didn't really care much about the matter since the overall and the final image is supposed to be small as you see above. Those smudges are hard to notice in smaller sizes and with increasing the sharpness in the image these are reduced. Of course, it was done with the help of Mercator projection and some change in the viewing angle. At the end of the process, a glamor effect was added to enhance the "dreamy" look about it.

Doppelbrennpunkte
(double foci)

However, not only these panoramas from Ireland and NYC were of interest, but even older ones like those taken here, and specifically the gazebo-like structure in Salmiyah, Kuwait. This panorama specifically was involved in many activities, but particularly two activities made it a "top": Mawahb fair, and the luxurious coffee table book printed by Trierenberg circle (sponsors of Austria's International Photography contest). However, in these 2 activities, the same panorama had different projection styles. Now, I decide to go further and try what I've noticed lately with Mercator projection and made out Doppelbrennpunkte. It was hard to decide on what kind of angular view I want to achieve here, but the biggest problem was that this panorama was not perfectly centralized (apparently for the problems in location itself). I settled down with what I call "Extreme Mercator" and centralized the fountain and the the dome (but reversed it so that the dome is at bottom for added surreal effect). The problem here is apparent, with the left side being thicker than the right side with columns stretching out. A friend pointed out the following when he saw Doppenbrennpunkte: Is it possible to make the foci (or centers) of the image in the corners instead of making the panorama twirl around a central point? His question is quite reasonable, and I'm to try that in the coming few days. However, one must bear in mind that the architecture of the place is the one that decides what would be or can be done about the features in it.

Palinopsia

Back to Staten Island with another panorama. particularly one done in the porch of the Victorian (B&B). This panorama in particular was "dormant," meaning not much could have been done about it because of the design of the place itself and the scattering furniture. Anyway, I decided to try the "Extreme Mercator" approach and somehow found some satisfaction when I made Palinopsia. The image looks split in half because of the matched left and right horizontal line meeting at the center (through the roof of course). Anyway, this is not the point I'm putting this here.
The real point about it is, I was tone-mapping (working out the original HDR) this panorama and it did take me particularly long time to achieve the desired look. However, it needed further work in Photoshop to enhance contrast further more and eliminate some colors problems. My first goal was to achieve a status of "fear," "uncertainty," and/or "melancholy" (Palinopsia: visual hallucinations). For this reason I worked in a low-saturation environment and I've increased the portion of black and its shades in the image to give a dark impulse to the scene. This is somewhat a challenge to do because I was trying to achieve a "dark" atmosphere using a relatively happy scene (filled with bright colors in furniture and plants).
Now, to the core of the story. To my surprise, my sister commented on this image saying "the colors are happy" (i.e. the colors emit or radiate a good mood)! I'm not sure how did that come up, and whether it is her only or other people do share this opinion. Increasing blacks and reducing saturation is usually a fingerprint for a psychosomatic atmosphere. Did she concentrate on a specific color in particular and that affected all her feelings about the image? Was it the curves that did (unconsciously) affect her enjoyment about the image without noticing the general atmosphere I'm trying to achieve? Or, is it me that didn't notice the happy aspect of the image? It's quite a puzzle to me. I did tell her that I was trying to make the image "melancholic"; however, no response from her so far, and we didn't talk about it in real. I think some interesting information can be learned in this little experiment!

Finale

At the end, I'm here trying to take life on my own pace. Trying to calm down a bit, and kicking negativity out as much as possible (but it's even a harder job to do when you live in the core of it).
Meanwhile, I'm reading articles and lessons on the web for learning Irish, but of course they are not completely sufficient until they are put into practice but it is a beginning after all. I have to say that reading and teaching myself some Irish did in fact open up gates of knowledge and insight into languages in general, and my own dialect in particular, as we usually speak without thinking why do we say things the way they are but it does sound just right for us that way! Nothing like that happened with me since the creation of Ayvarith. One of the ways I'm using now to force myself into digging deeper into the language and learn more, is translating quotes from Arabic mainly into Irish; this procedure would normally force me to dig the dictionaries and read more to try to achieve the best translation possible.

I'm sure there are a number of mistakes there of course, so I'm just hoping someone would correct me whenever possible. Beside learning the languages I'm keeping myself busy with the images at home and books at work. This workplace must be changed at a certain point of my life for sure.
On the other hand, I've finally extracted something out of my mind to call it a "poem." I can't be a critique for my own works but at least I was able to write something in the whim of the moment, and I called it The Wind of Daisies. Maybe I should specify some special time for such mental processes and write something down. I need to get back to poetry a bit because it is a good vent, and I remember that pretty well from my early 20s. Meanwhile, there had been an interesting offer sent to me to spread some of my images for some commercial benefits. I'm going through it step by step and hopefully it can be a good starting point to the outer world. And I'm hoping this is better than submitting my photos to stock websites. One step at a time. Probably there will be a number of images that I would need to delete from stock websites soon. Hopefully by keeping myself busy, I'll forget a lot of my failures...

Synchronizing Engine...

Well, my first week being back to work and a really one hell of a week: stress, mood swings, road rage; you name it. In the same time I'm back to my readings and to photo processing, specially those from the US, while trying to regulate my time as much as possible and to be more involved with the group's activities. I've discovered lately that some people do take me an example as it seems in some way - either in photography or something else, but I have to say this feeling is frightening as much as it is pleasing. I've received some questions lately from members of the group about how I do what I do and how I choose my angles, or how do I envision the shoot. Some questions like those need a philosophical answer and long conversation.
This all comes in a time where I'm under pressure somehow to having one of those new smart phones (mine is HTC running on WindowsMobile v6.0) just to keep in touch with the rest of the group via some Apps. The matter is still ongoing in my mind to consider having one of those - yet, I'm not so convinced about it and I do think it is a waste of money, because I would be using it only for the group, supposedly. Also, I've been submitting suggestions to the group as well, concerning new ideas for workshops and establishing a system for borrowing books about photography between the members - and waiting for any further advance in these fields so far.

Now back home, I've somehow started a rhyme for my work pace but I don't think I will stay on this theme for long. I usually stitch a panorama overnight or start the stitching in the morning before I leave to work, then come back from work and start working on it, and then after posting it I would turn to a regular photo and try to process one or two if I can. The end result is 2 to 3 images a day. I've already even filled the 2^nd album with 20 images and feels like it was yesterday when I've just finished the 1^st! However, I won't send the album in mass email yet as I've just also sent 103 images from the Constitution Day festival by email to lot of friends (same images in the slideshow in my previous post). 

In between working out the images from the US, I took another peek at some of the images taken from Sharg mall, and specially the panorama which was done inside in the main hall of the mall.
I've done only a flat version of this panorama and a QTVR, but now I've discovered how amazing this place can be under planet projection.

Planeta Aurea Orientis
(Eastern Golden Planet)

Here, in this panorama specifically there are several points and work that have been done and I'd like to note out here:

• One important elements that works as a guide line for the eyes of the viewer and helps on standing this panorama specifically out, is the fact that the ceiling was made of straight wooden boards. This gives an effect of absorbing the viewer to the center.
• The usual weird color patches appeared. They were blue, and as a new approach, I've added a Photo Filter layer to the whole image while in HDR mode to counteract the blue color. Naturally, the opposite color to BLUE is YELLOW and hence it added more golden shade to the whole image. However, this approach didn't eliminate the blue patches completely of course but it reduced their intensity in some areas.
• Any place with pillars, is worth shooting in panoramas and converting into a planet.
• With added contrast and other adjustment layers I've realized the potential of pulling the viewer further from the outer side to the center inside by darkening the outer edges where the wooden boards are shaped like magnetic field lines. Here, it was a work to be done with the Burn tool.
• A notice which I cannot completely confirm, but most of these weird blue patches, would appear around areas of stitching errors.

Beside Sharg mall, there was also a shot taken from the roof of the mall itself later that week when I was preparing my camera on the top before the fireworks display for the Constitution Day. In fact, this image was just a test to the see the general framing and the exposure along with the white balance settings.To check for the exposure, I've taken a bracketed shot (with 3 different shutter speeds). However, after all the sorting was done, I re-checked the folder and thought of some of these test images. I wasn't serious about it and didn't think of uploading it to stock sites, but the image gained some likes specially on Flickr.

Civitatem Felix
(Happy City)

Again, some points worth mentioning here, and even though lot of people like it, I have to say, to me it is just an experiment and I don't really consider it a nice one. However, here are some notes about this image:

• The main factor here after merging HDR and tone-mapping the HDR, is the color space. Assigning and not Converting the color space from Adobe 1998 to ProPhoto. This step alone is responsible for pushing the contrast and the saturation of the colors, specially the blue, to a higher and a vivid limit.
• Many adjustments for the orientation (as the tripod seemed to be tilted at the time of the shoot originally!) - but here I had depend on my eyes and rotate the image manually instead of relying on the conventional tools in Photoshop for fixing the tilted horizon. For some reason, the fixes done by this tool didn't look right to me eyes.
• Even though it was f/8, but I didn't expect the sparkle in the light sources to be that strong. I would love to make halos around the light sources now rather than sparkles.
• Used Faux Dynamic Range method (or the false dynamic range method) to extract some details from some shadows and highlights and increasing the contrast.
• Finally, since this image is for a small display and not for stock sites upload, I've exaggerated a bit in my use for noise and sharpening plugins (before and after minimizing the image). Seems it created a strong and a pronounced look after all. Of course some details would be lost but in a small size display, that is not important really.
• Spent some time trying different crops after adjusting the tilt as I was trying to find proper placement for objects along the edges and the corners.
• The image in general is unplanned and typically a chaos. There is no specific order, no specific trend, just a view for the city. Yet, people like it. Something weird is going on here!

Now, on a different note, I think I have to change my usual printing shop. I'm getting somehow sick of the service they provide - always something broken, no material, and you have to go the main branch which sucks. I would like to go to somewhere else but the other places I know so far are far expensive as far as I know. However, I will check out when the time comes. As for now, there are games on the queue line need to be played and finished with...

中国的星球
(Chinese Planet)

Racing Time...

Wow! What a busy week. I'm so exhausted that I don't even know how I'm typing these words. I've been going out daily (out of work that is) to do some chores, and all of that is done with all the traffic jams. Also, I go out in the afternoons amid the same jams just to complete the tasks! I've been busy with my "business" if I should say. Catalogs, prints and soon, the expo will be coming on the 22nd. Now, I've been sleeping so early (9 or 10 p.m.) which is something rarely done, but it is good so far, but the not so-good part is not being able to wake up easily, even though I've been sleeping early like that. I'm sleeping for 7 hours now instead of 5, but it's hard to wake up in the morning. I indulge in daydreaming the most at morning times, which makes it harder even to raise my head up above the pillow.

I. Media Race:

I've finally finished my catalog and printed out. Only 20 copies so far, and they cost a fortune. I've been spreading the catalogs around and some people did already talk about "ordering" some. Hope this will lead to more money on the way. I've spent more than 200 K.D. (~ US$720) in two months just to initiate the project.

The Catalog.
Didn't have much care for taking this photo in fact!

I've been asked already to make some prints by a "customer" but till this moment no "real" sale yet. I'm optimistic though, and I know a business in these times is not an easy thing to achieve. One step at a time.

Photo for the first print around the size of A2.

The second print I've made on A1 size (and waiting for framing).

II. Dark Aspect:

I've mentioned before in previous blog posts that I was thinking in two types of panoramas, but I didn't say what are they I suppose, since I don't like to spill my ideas out. However, one of these ideas was achieved (partially). The panorama was done using the flash unit attached to the camera in the process.

Dunkeltraum (Dark Dream)

I've said "partially" earlier because, simply, this is not the place I was hoping for. The panorama was done on the roof of the house and it is a simple horizontal panorama. I was aiming for a place that would be more clogged with objects and showing signs of destruction of violence, and needless to say, I hate to work on the roof, specially with a flash firing. It happened though as I expected and there was someone watching me as I heard some windows or doors sliding, but I didn't react. If I did look around trying to find the source of these sounds in this pitch dark environment, most probably I would be like a guilty person in their eyes. Whoever was there, it surely give me some nuisance that I don't need, and I had to pace up my work speed.

However, the image above was not to my liking in general, because as I said the place is not well-chosen as I wished, but after all I got some of the lessons and remarks that I've made for myself concerning flash photography combined with panoramic photography. I was trying in the beginning (before this trial) to fix the bracket I've purchased a while ago to carry the flash well above the camera, but it didn't work out well and I couldn't attach it to the whole configuration.
Maybe, just maybe, as it is a thought for now, maybe it is possible to mimic the effect of the flash making spot lights on the scene by using the capabilities of the HDR for lowering and raising the exposure value for certain areas, but I'm not sure this will be perfect for resembling the flash strokes.
Also, there is the fact that I might need to change the power of the flash frequently while working in a dark environment to resemble the spot-light effect. This is just to avoid making everything so dark, and the power should be concentrated on the important features of the place. Such stuff are hard to do (but can be done) with HDR slides.
I need another round with "flash panorama" (I coined it here) but I need the proper atmosphere and space to do so.

III. Windy Encounter:

Last Saturday, and just for the sake of keeping my hand warm with the camera, I've decided to go to the beach, anywhere on the beach, just to snap some images. I was lucky somehow with some images, but the wind there almost knocked me off! It was a tough wind, and with me wearing a jacket and trying to stand in a place and snap and image raising my hands up, that made me like a sail and the wind kept pushing me back hard. However, I think I achieved some stability there!

Graceful City
Canon 18-55mm @42mm

The first catch was the image above; Graceful City. What captured my eyes is the sun rays blowing from behind the clouds. Of course, in my mind I was estimating what kind of workflow to emphasize this feature and to emphasize these lines, and the answer was simply, HDR. There is really no time for metering and working peacefully, and the wind wouldn't give a chance. However, even though I took a bracketed image (3 shots of 3 different exposures) I tried in the beginning to work solely on a single shot and tried hard to fix it and emphasize the rays coming out of the clouds, yet, unfortunately, this didn't work quite well. Now with HDR, I thought of completely changing the mood of the image. One thing is annoying me though, and that is the white spots caused by the high lighting coming from the sun.

The second catch was the gazebo that I've snapped from afar before. Combined with the clouds in the sky and the horizon, I thought I would get out of it with some scene. I've changed my lens at this point to Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens.

Into

Arousal

Heavy work was waiting for me with DxO Optics. I could have left the images untouched with their fisheye distortion, but I thought it would be nice when the sky and the edges appear stretched a bit, giving some depth to the images. The hard time was in fixing the horizon mainly, and by implying some highlight and shadow enhancement to show more details. These two images were made out from single RAWs, but with DxO, there is a possibility to turn it out with some HDR feel to it. These two, might be a target for enlisting into my printable collection...
At the end, and under the gazebo, I had a shot for that fancy roof (with the same lens). It was hard to balance myself over the benches and I almost flipped backward!

Wooden Web

This shot, too, was done with a single RAW and not HDR bracketing. Of course there is some cropping after adjusting the rotation of the image. It was hard to balance with that wind.

I'm missing my doodling with Geltani and Ayvarith for sure, but in such times there are measures I can't stop. I just hope I'll be back to all soon, beside being in the business... I need to finish with this expo as soon as possible, if only time can run as we wish...

Mente Turbata in Mosque Magnam...

What the hell was going on with me in the past two weeks is something I wouldn't understand, ever. Stress, fatigue, injuries and finally, personal issues; feels like being dead and alive in the same time. Ah well, what's the difference after all... wasn't it like that most of the time?
I feel like nothing is left for me now except of my camera. I guess I will put it beside me on bed and hug it instead of getting a teddy bear myself. I spent this week somehow trying to test and use my new toy, the 8mm Rokinon fisheye lens and trying to adapt it to my panorama workflow.
For the time being, I'm still not so sure that I will adapt this new lens for my workflow. It is a double-edged sword. In the same time that it lowers down the number of shots and effort (and time), but on the other hand, in the same time, it reduces the resolution drastically. Although my usual size for panoramas ranges between 8,000-10,000 pixels in width, but with Canon's 15mm fisheye lens you would have the choice to expand beyond up to 20,000 pixels in width, while with Rokinon's 8mm fisheye, you are limited to 13,000. The depth of field and the sharpness are still under the scope for more testing. Setting the VR-head with Rokinon's 8mm was also a struggle and it pronounced the tripod legs and the VR-head itself more often and makes it pronounced more; talk about hardships in removing them. I need to try more and see if I can get comfortable with this for real.

Test image with Rokinon's 8mm f/3.5 fisheye lens. Mom didn't like to move so I blurred her!

I didn't care much about tone-mapping the HDR here. I just had the urge to play around. Not an image for the stocks after all. As you can see, such shot would require maybe 2 or 3 (and maybe more a bit) with Canon's 15mm fisheye lens, but here it's all taken with one shot. Well, 3 bracketed for HDR processing of course. The tripod was elevated to around 2 meters high.

My joy in the past week was with some shots taken here and there with my photography class. I had to work in a haste little bit to prepare the images for this post. It was so much of a headache to work on these photos specially now, on Wednesday, after a really sick long day.
Anyway, our class went first to Al-Babtain's Library for Arabic Poetry (Let's call it BLAP for now). On Tuesday however, and unexpectedly, I got a phone call almost one hour before I leave work saying that we have a session today with the class in The Grand Mosque; a great mosque in the capital and beside BLAP building. It was a real hassle, as my tools were at home because I thought we won't go to a second location after BLAP. It was an exhaustive day.

I. BLAP:

BLAP was an interesting place, not for its construction only, but also because it is the first time I hear of it. The interior design was nice but unfortunately I went there without my VR-head. The architecture in the place is generally modern-type, but maybe with bits (only tiny bits) of antique-like structures, like the pillars for example.

Columnae

The pillars here were outside and on the side of the main "yard" if I should say. It is a bit like an open corridor. This shot was my first in that session (and here you see the tone-mapped HDR, but the RAW is also good). To take this shot I've spent almost 5 to 10 minutes trying to adjust my tripod and the tripod head (Velbon panhead) to make the perfect center. However, seems after all it is still inclined a bit (or is it an illusion?). I've having some hard time with keeping things straight (specially when it comes to panorama making). At such moments it would be useful to have a tripod with central lock like I used to have before, but on the other hand you lose some flexibility after all. My current tripod is nice, but also can be light that you might knock it off and shake it before you put the camera. Talk about clumsy movements; welcome to the story of my life.
The occasion was also a good one to give my new Rokinon 8mm another trial. In fact, I'm less impressed for the time being in putting this lens into my panorama workflow, but nevertheless, it gives some really nice shots in singles. I have my own doubts about the claimed sharpness though; could it be I'm doing something wrong?

Reading Hall
Rokinon 8mm f/3.5 fisheye lens

One thing was for sure though; a simple tilt in the center means a severely tilted image as a whole. This is true with this fisheye lens. Although in this picture above, I've spent also around 5 minutes adjusting and leveling the tripod and the camera accordingly with the vertical straight line of the door, I've just found out when I got back home and after merging into HDR that the whole image was quite apparently tilted; it is mostly apparent in the sides, while the center was a little bit off. I'm not sure how to solve this problem further.
And there is that one shot that I "stole" from my teacher. He was taking it and I told him I can do the same, so he said go ahead! It's weird how I didn't remember such point: the most interesting views are those taken above or below us. It is a true statement, and was stated as well by George Barr in his book,Take Your Photography to The Next Level: From Inspiration to Image.

City of Mirrors II
or maybe I should call it Zenith.

It was taken in front of the entrance portal (or door, or whatever it is). This HDR version in fact doesn't differ much from the RAW version, except of maybe for adding more halos to the light bulbs. My teacher here fixed for me a problem with the tripod as well, which was not being able to point at 90 degrees up. The solution was simply to rotate the camera body itself (unscrewing the base little bit). Might be shaky situation, but it was the only solution I got. I tried hard to keep the space in the middle in the center of the shot.
In case you are wondering why it is City of Mirrors II, well, naturally there is a first one that I didn't mention here.

City of Mirror I

I won't go through all the details here with the tilt in the image as well; I guess you know it by now. However, I had to pick my location carefully in hope my reflection on the glass won't appear (and guess it didn't so far!). The glass translucent, making an interesting pattern from the inside and the outside mixing them together in a surreal look. Maybe this is one of the fewest things I like about the city life; architecture. There were some issues with the clarity of the image as well, but oh well, this is a typical problem with my 18-55mm EF-S lens. Now, thinking about it, could it be that I see things tilted because of some barrel effect? 18-55mm lens DO have a barrel distortion and I've tested it before.
There are other shots that I might keep for myself or add them here later on. But one day after this event, I got that surprising call for a session in the Grand Mosque; a perfect place for a panorama!

II. The Grand Mosque - Mosque Magnam:

Maybe I'm not that so-religious person, but surely the Grand Mosque here is a chance not to be missed. The whole thing was a hassle in the beginning, but rewarding later. Even my teacher was surprised when he got a phone call saying that we were granted a permission, as he said. It was a last moment phone call.
Anyway, because I went to work with no intention of photography work for the rest of the day, I had to sign for a short leave as soon as I got that phone call about the session, just to avoid the apex of the jam here. Went back home, prepared my tools, and then after a one-hour rest I headed to the capital with ALL my tools. What are all my tools?

• Backpack: containing my camera and all my lenses and filters (with the adapters of course), and also contains my little spiderpod.
• Tripod and panhead.
• Lateral extension arm.
• Manfrotto 303SPH VR-head.

For the time being, I don't want to talk about the weight of these things. It is not a pleasant memory! As I headed there, I was the first one to be there as usual, and remained there till others arrived and my teacher as well, and I, alone, waited for something around one hour in the outside.
As we went inside, the first thing to do was to do the hardest part: the panorama. There will be plenty of time for single shots later on.

Mosque Magnam

It is not the first time to work with people going around; I've already done that in Ireland, in the Ardeaglais Cormaic in Cashel Rock. However, here it was a bit harder with fellow photographers since some of them had to remain in one position for minutes and I have to give them their own time to take their shots.
This image you see above is done in a haste in fact because I wanted to put it here as soon as possible. There were lot of stitching errors (that might be related to the moving bodies in the scene rather than bad alignment), and I might give it one other try and try to fix these stitching errors by using Blending Priority if possible.
In this HDR panorama I preferred to use the (M)anual method and put the basic shutter speed at 2", while ISO was 400. As my teacher stated in earlier classes, and in a humorous tone "... using high ISO with a tripod is an infidelity!". This is true, but in HDR the situation is different a bit. I had to make sure that the +2EV bracket won't exceed 30", and the place was low in light (the workers in the mosque didn't turn the lights on until the dusk time after I finished the panorama). There are other projections on the way, like the vertical and the tunnel-view and the little planet. All will come in time hopefully, with a QTVR.

The dome of the place was a bit problematic. As you can see from the panorama above, there is a glass cabinet which contains a handwritten Quran with some writing tools. It is said that it is a Quran written by hand by the 3rd ruler of Muslims back then. Anyway, this cabinet was exactly in the middle of the hall (where I should place my tripod eventually), and it is exactly at the center of the dome. Although I finished my panorama placing my tripod as close as possible to the cabinet, but that didn't stop me from trying to take the center in exact position. It was the time for my lateral extension arm to be in work.
The bad thing is, I didn't bring my other camera to take a picture of the setting, but anyway, it was simply done by using the later arm to extend my camera with Rokinon's fisheye lens above the glass cabinet. Shaky, and dangerous and I could have been in trouble if the camera fell down on the glass and... break it. In the beginning, as a precaution, I was placing my hand under the camera body as it pointed upward, but Rokinon's fisheye has a really wide view and I have to give my trust to my tools and leave it hanging in the air like that and bow down to avoid capturing my head as well...

Tholus Magnus

Maybe a little bit off the center, but it was rewarding I believe. Would be off with a close up zoom, but the general geometry is fantastic as well.
There were many shots but I don't want to put everything here for the time being. I'm just glad this week is over and hope of a "brighter" week. I feel sick being myself now. Wish if I can sleep, and wake up when the world is over...

Gloriae Campus